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Getting out on to the footy ground to hear the coach's address is something
that happens in local or country footy but never in the AFL. Well, not until
Sunday, anyway. Hawthorn officials revealed yesterday that when coach Peter
Schwab and his coaching staff strolled on to the MCG for the Hawks' quarter-time
huddle in the match against the Kangaroos a spectator pretended he was part of
the group and joined them. And dressed in the club's official match-day navy
blue polo top not only did he walk straight past security staff but mingled with
the team and officials for several minutes before someone twigged he was an
intruder and ordered him off.

"He must have come down the race (in the Great Southern Stand) behind
Schwabbie and because he looked like one of us the gate attendant would have let
him through," said Hawk assistant coach George Stone. He said no fuss was made
of it at the time as officials were more intent on concentrating on the game but
agreed the man's appearance was a security concern.

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With trainers and stats men making up a club's on-field entourage the
intruder went unnoticed for several minutes. In fact, had it not been for his
lack of attention to detail he might not have been noticed at all. Said Stone:
"We suddenly realised his polo top had the Samsung logo, last year's sponsor,
not HFBC. That's why someone asked, 'Hey, who's he?' and that's when he
left."

AFL ground operations boss Jill Lindsay said last night Hawthorn had not
raised the matter with the league but she would launch an investigation
today.

Ban the banner (cont)

Brisbane-Collingwood clashes have always had an edge to them, not least
because of Magpie president Eddie McGuire's ongoing battle with the AFL over the
Lions' salary cap concessions. But there's an extra element to this week's
encounter because it was in the corresponding Easter game last year that McGuire
and the league clashed heavily over the wording of the club banner. In fact, so
upset was the AFL when it learned that the banner read "The AFL Lions, with
salaries to spare, fix 'em up Pies, make 'em look like the Bears" that it
threatened to fine Collingwood $20,000 unless it was changed. McGuire relented,
of course, ($20,000 is a lot of money, even for the rich Pies) and had the words
blanked out but not before he accused the league of "heavy-handedness at best
and bully-boy stuff at worst".

Well, 12 months later may be a long time in footy but it would appear that
McGuire has not forgiven the league for its 2003 stand. Asked yesterday if he
had some more provocative and politically inspired message planned for Thursday,
McGuire let rip again.

"When we work out the wording we'll send it down to the office of truth (the
AFL) and get them to approve it first," he said. "Better still, we might even
send them a blank one and get them to write it for us."

Wow, posts at the park

The banner aside, the next few days loom as a "big week in football" for the
controversial Collingwood president (so big, in fact, he might even use that
line to open the special Wednesday edition of his Channel Nine Footy
Show). Not only do his boys take on their grand final nemesis but, for the
second time in three weeks, he will commentate on a match involving them. But
before all that there is another "special Magpie event" tomorrow, a media launch
of the club's new training and administration facilities at Olympic Park.

McGuire was refusing to reveal what the club had in store other than to say
it would be a "not-to-be-missed event", but one thing he couldn't hide from our
prying eyes yesterday was that Olympic Park, once famous for track and field and
soccer, now proudly boasts Aussie rules goal posts.

Bomber shades of 1933

A double cellar-dweller start to the season is always a worrying sign but
history would suggest that for Essendon, it is particularly so. Stats whiz Kevin
Taylor has been checking his records and discovered yesterday that the last time
the Bombers languished at the bottom of the ladder in successive weeks was in
1933, the year of the club's last wooden spoon. On that occasion they remained
last for nine consecutive weeks.

Cop this!

Millwall's fairytale passage to the FA Cup final against Manchester United may be great for soccer, but we wonder if England's constabulary shares the same view. Problem No.1 is Millwall's chairman, Theo Paphitis, who promised to run naked around Trafalgar Square if Millwall beat Sunderland, which it promptly did at the weekend.

Problem No.2 may well be on the terraces where Millwall's fans these days
have a famous chant in honour of their infamously combative player-manager
Dennis Wise, who has had many heated on-field run-ins with United's equally
fiery captain Roy Keane and Nicky Butt, who are both expected to be playing. The
chant goes: "He's only five-foot four; he'll break your f------ jaw."

Who said that?

"Usually we smell a bit strange but with this drink we all seem to smell very
nice."- MICHAEL SCHUMACHER after he and the other two Bahrain Grand Prix
placegetters celebrated with a non-alcoholic fruit juice instead of champagne
due to Muslim restrictions.